


it begins

by writerforlife



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Introspection, M/M, Steve Rogers Feels, Steve Rogers Has PTSD, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, so this is what we ended up with folks, the second endgame trailer came out and fucked me over!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-04
Updated: 2019-02-04
Packaged: 2019-10-22 01:26:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17653385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writerforlife/pseuds/writerforlife
Summary: For Steve Rogers, every new beginning leads to a fight, and to loss.





	it begins

**Author's Note:**

> Endgame is gonna fuck me up!!!! That's the only thing I know for sure about this movie. Anyways, enjoy about a 1000 words all inspired by the one shot of Cap tightening his shield :)

**** It begins with a breath. 

James Buchanan Barnes—a few minutes later, he will insist that Steve calls him Bucky—exhales, breath fogging in the cold Brooklyn winter. He shakes his bruised knuckles and gives Steve’s black eye a once-over.

“You shouldn’t pick fights with thugs bigger than you,” Bucky says.

“You don’t know me very well, then,” Steve replies. “I don’t walk away from fights.”

After that, they’re inseparable. 

Beginnings, Steve will learn, are fickle things, for they can happen more than once. 

 

#

 

It begins with a kiss. 

He’s taller now, broader and stronger, but he thinks he’s still the same man. Bucky is bruised and bloodied, needle marks prickling along his skin, but he studies Steve with his lips parted in their private tent. 

“So I leave you alone for a few weeks,” Bucky says. “And this is what you do to yourself.”

“Are you angry?” Steve asks.

“Do you care?”

“Yes.” Steve does. But he also cares about duty, and if he hadn’t done this to himself, Bucky would have rotted in the hands of Nazis, and Steve would’ve crumbled away in some rancid corner of Brooklyn. 

Bucky kisses him. It’s rough. Desperate. Inquisitive. He’s searching, trying to find someone. His Steve.

“You can say no to this,” Steve says. Bucky didn’t have to be a part of this story.

Bucky smiles sadly. “You know I can’t.”

 

#

 

It begins with a train.

He clings to the side after Bucky falls, even though he wants nothing more than to follow. Not yet, though. Not yet. Once they’re safe, the Howling Commandos mutter their condolences. Steve knows that they know. He knows that they’ve heard them at night. He knows they haven’t said anything. 

He knows that it’s only a matter of time. 

Where Bucky goes, he follows. 

The ocean takes him slowly. He lays down and closes his eyes as the water swells into the cockpit, shield across his chest and Peggy’s picture in hand.

Bucky, he holds in his heart. 

 

#

 

It begins with deception. 

A game, almost.

They test him, with a beige room and made-up woman and an old baseball game. They  _ deceive  _ him. He doesn’t hold it against them. He deceives SHIELD, too. They treat him like putting the plane in the water robbed him of everything he had to live for after the war. Of course he made the sacrifice for the world’s sake. Of course. But his partner had died days ago—days ago, still, despite the year. 

There had been selfishness, too. 

“You alright, Rogers?” Nick Fury asks. 

“I’m in a new time,” Steve says.

“You didn’t answer my question.”

He stares at the sweeping New York skyline. “Do I need to?”

 

#

 

It begins with a son. 

Howard’s son. 

He watches from the ground as Tony Stark flies toward the gaping tear in the sky’s fabric, flies with a nuclear weapon on his back, flies knowing that he won’t come back. 

This, he thinks, was unexpected.

He accused this same man of being nothing without the suit. 

But a suit has nothing to do with what Tony’s sacrificing now.

The thought runs through his head as he kneels next to Tony on the rubble-littered streets. Tony’s eyes are closed. Chest still. Face bruised. 

Then, he wakes. 

Steve thinks he understands victory again. 

 

#

 

It begins with fear. 

Because Tony is afraid, and he tries to fix it, and it’s wrong, wrong, beyond wrong.  _ They’re  _ going to protect the world.  _ They’re  _ going to clean up the messes. They don’t need Ultron. How could they trust anything else? How could Tony trust technology and large groups after SHIELD’s corruption? 

But he fights. 

He fights alongside Tony, and Natasha, and Thor, and Bruce, and Clint.

These are the people he trusts. 

And when it’s over, he’s left feeling that, like Sokovia, something unchangeable has shifted from its foundation. This is a turning point, he realizes. This is where they’re tested.

This is when he wishes he could turn to Bucky. 

 

#

 

It begins with a broken man.

He wraps Bucky’s arm over his shoulder. 

He leaves Tony on the ground.

He drops the SHIELD. 

They board the quinjet, and he presses his lips to Bucky’s, breathing heavy, avoiding wires and thoughts of Tony.

“I’m not worth this,” Bucky whispers. 

“You are,” Steve says. He repeats it over and over until Bucky’s crying. He repeats it until Bucky falls asleep, fitfully but solidly.

Later, he can feel the guilt, crawling up from his stomach and into his throat and mouth and nose. It’s tangible, smothering him from the inside out. As Bucky sleeps, Steve sinks to his knees. He wraps his arms around himself. He digs his nails into his palms, drawing blood. The cuts heal. Scarless. He opens his mouth in a silent scream. 

He doesn’t make a sound.

Not even when Bucky leaves him. 

Again.

 

#

 

It begins with a sunrise. 

Steve and Bucky sit together outside his hut in Wakanda, watching golden light pour over sprawling fields. The goats graze happily, gnawing on rich green gas. Bucky’s lips rest in an easy smile. Steve closes his eyes, relishing the heat on his face. He’s been cold, lately. Freezing, from his skin to his blood. He thinks the years have stolen something from him, and no matter how much he tries, he can’t get it back.

“I love you,” Steve blurts. “I love you, more than anything.”

“I know,” Bucky whispers. “For your sake, I wish you didn’t.”

“Why?”

“Because we’re going to lose each other again.”

“SInce when did you tell fortunes?”

But deep down, Bucky’s words resonate. 

 

#

 

It begins with dust. 

Steve’s on his knees next to Bucky’s remains, but he can’t conjure a single prayer. Wind ripples through the forest and upsets the ashes. They splash over the fallen gun. Sam is nowhere to be seen. 

He believed in God, once. He doesn’t anymore. No god would let this happen. If there is a god, He is cruel and unforgiving. 

His teammates stand around him. 

Waiting. 

Watching. 

He waits for someone to begin speaking.

That person, he realizes, was usually Tony.

And Tony, too, is gone. 

Everyone he loved most is gone. 

 

#

 

It begins with hopelessness. 

He finds himself in a group therapy session for survivors. He can’t say much. But from the haunted looks in the other participants’ eyes, he knows he doesn’t have to. 

Bucky. 

Sam.

Tony. 

He can’t bring himself to say their names. 

He can’t bring himself to say that maybe, just maybe, if the Avengers hadn’t been together, if he hadn’t abandoned his shield in Siberia, if he hadn’t betrayed Tony’s trust, they could’ve won. That would be too much like a confession, and he doesn’t believe in God. 

He only knows that there has to be a way, any way, to bring them back.

  
  


#

 

It begins with a conversation.

“I’m glad you’re alive,” Steve says to Tony. 

“So am I,” Tony replies. 

“And I was wrong.”

“I wasn’t entirely blameless myself.”

Steve grimaces. “You don’t have to do that.”

“I know.”

“I’ll make it up to you.”

Tony’s eyes soften. “I know.”

“He was always my blind spot. I… I think you know what I feel. For him.”

“Dad always said you two came as a matched set.” Tony smiles sadly. Steve hates that he seems to inspire that. “We’ll get him back. We’ll get them all back.”

 

#

 

It begins with a promise. 

He’s made a lot of promise across two centuries, to Erskine, to Peggy, to Tony, to Bucky. He’s had trouble keeping them. But he can do this. He can bring the dead back to the living, he can fight again if it means Bucky will return. If half the world will return.

Briefly, he wonders what he would be without a war. Would he still be Steve Rogers? Would Bucky still love him? Would his teammates—even Tony—look at him, implicitly trusting?

Would he have lived past thirty?

But that was never a beginning he was meant to explore. 

He exhales, breath fogging in the brittle cold. 

He remembers Brooklyn, remembers the man he’s fighting for. 

He flexes his bloody, shaking fingers. 

He tightens his shield. 

Maybe, he thinks, this beginning will be his last. 

**Author's Note:**

> I love hearing from you guys! Drop in with a comment or follow me on tumblr at @such-geekiness


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